


Practical Magic

by Rozarka



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Underage (teenage) sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-05
Updated: 2006-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 04:57:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozarka/pseuds/Rozarka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione is in dire need of some practical guidance, but Viktor doesn't want to be a bandit ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practical Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Inell's birthday challenge in 2006, the "Be My Valentine" Hermione Fest. This story contains underage (teenage) sexuality: Hermione is fifteen; Viktor is eighteen.
> 
> There's a sequel to this story, set a few years later, after the war: [Tiger By The Tail.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/474770)

She lay on her back with her fingers down her knickers, face burning, wrist and knuckles sore from working, breath going in quick, shallow, carefully controlled pants. Her cramping legs felt like they had run a mile, and her heart hammered like a piston. It was impossible. Ginny must be right, this must be what it felt like having a heart attack coming on. Having a heart attack coming on and on and never bloody happening.

Except Ginny had told her (in whispered confessions through the intimate dark, long after bedtime in Ginny's room at the Burrow, nearly unreal to think of in the daylight later) that once you managed to do it, it was a whole lot nicer than a heart attack and it was much easier making it happen the next time.

Hermione collapsed back, near to tears with defeat. She knew it. She lacked natural talent at this, just like she did at flying, Quidditch, ball games and almost any activity demanding physical prowess. If there had been a class in attaining orgasms, she'd have certainly flunked it, she thought, despondent.

She was distracted for a moment by trying to decide who would teach such a class, and her mood lifted a fraction as she pictured the idiosyncrasies that each teacher would bring to the subject. She had to grin into the dark inside her drawn bed curtains thinking of Hooch's brisk, no-nonsense approach, while applying Snape's softly hissed demands brought a certain interested throb between her legs, which made her drop the train of thought with a grimace.

She heard the tread of feet up the stairs and stiffened, reining in her breath to soundless, staccato pants. Parvati and Lavender entered the dorm, bickering with each other over something, and she was relieved that they were making enough noise to cover up whatever suspicious sounds might escape her. She drew her knees up almost to her chin, cradling the coiled, lonely ache between her legs. Her eyes were closed on remembered visions and sensations: the way Viktor's heavy lids would fall half-closed just as he decided to lean forward and kiss her, the low sound in his throat as she'd open her mouth to the touch of his tongue, the gleam of saliva on his soft lips when he'd gently withdraw, leaving her in the clutches of that squirming, maddening warmth.

Viktor was so sweet and protective of her, mindful of her younger age -- so much so, it made her want to scream at times. His kisses weren't chaste, but his hands were, never giving anything more illicit than perhaps a stroke of his thumb down the side of her breast -- and that _outside_ her robes, thought Hermione bitterly. It wasn't fair. She knew from the heat in his eyes, from the cadence of his breath and the tightly controlled pressure of his body against hers, that he must be just as afflicted by this infernal ache, but he had the option of going back to the ship when they parted at night, locking the door of his private cabin (lucky, privileged bastard), and Hermione thought she had a fair idea what he'd do there to relieve the tension.

After weeks of valiant struggle to achieve the same -- well, months, really, but it hadn't felt urgent before Viktor entered the equation -- sheer frustration was making her resentful, although she knew deep down that wasn't quite fair, either. She didn't believe that it was mere gallantry that held Viktor back: it was his sense of responsibility, planted so deep and so tenaciously in him, its roots clutched right at his heart.

And she had to admit that she liked that about him, almost better than anything else.

Hugging her pillow closer, her fingers brushed against the book lying under it, the copy of _Woman, Know Your Body_ that her sweet young aunt Christine had sent her as a present for her fifteenth birthday in September. Hermione had studied the illustrations and text with dutiful (and maybe some prurient) interest, had explored herself while making systematic comparison to the step-by-step suggestions in the book, and had concluded that she had the requisite working equipment for making a climax happen.

But there must be something more. Something the book didn't tell about, some secret key, some ... magic. Whether of the Muggle or the wizarding kind. Like in Molly Weasley's _Witches In Love_ paperbacks that she'd read on the sly during rainy summer days: 'she surrendered to the sweet sorcery of their passion,' it would say before the scene faded to black, or, 'his experienced hands ignited fire in her willing body like an _Incendio_.'

It made her mind feel all twisted up with anxiety to think that everyone had got this magic figured out -- even Lavender and Parvati, judging by the muted sounds she sometimes could discern from their respective beds at night -- while she, Hermione, was lagging behind.

She turned over onto her stomach, gently pressing her hips into the mattress. Viktor knew about the magic, she thought. He knew what to do with his lips and hands to leave her in that shaky state. 

She'd gone to bed at nine, half an hour earlier than the curfew rules dictated. When the castle bells had tolled out eleven and she still lay achingly awake, she sat up, drew the curtain aside, and quietly pulled on a jumper over her pyjamas; then, without thinking it through, she took her wand and her shoes in hand before she tiptoed to the door.

"Where' you going, Hermione?" mumbled Parvati from under her covers.

"Can't sleep. I'll just go downstairs and read a little," Hermione whispered back.

The Gryffindor common room was deserted. She stood indecisive for a minute, looking at the dying flames in the fireplace, her mind in overdrive to sort through her options. 

It was Viktor's fault, she thought -- not vindictively, just reasoning: he'd put her in this pitiful state. She didn't know anyone else to ask for help with this problem. The thought of asking Ginny for further instructions filled her with a misery of embarrassment -- Ginny was really sweet, but she _knew_ so much with all those wild brothers of hers, and sometimes Hermione got the feeling that Ginny found her questions funny, which was all right when it _was_ funny, like when she was interrogating Ginny about finding Bill in the broomshed all panting and red-faced with his hand busy and his bits hanging out, but this particular situation didn't feel humorous at all.

Aunt Christine was too far away, and Professor Snape's allure as well as availability were both considerably lower in reality than in her fantasy.

And that exhausted her alternatives. It wasn't like she could ask Harry or, God help her, Ron. Hermione winced at the mere notion. Not that she thought either of them would have displayed a grasp of the finer points of female anatomy, anyway.

At the end of this chain of logic, Hermione found herself sitting on the couch bent forward and lacing up her trainers, as though her feet had already known where she'd be going before her head had caught up.

She walked quietly up the stairs to Ron and Harry's dorm and knocked softly, praying that it wouldn't be Ron opening the door, because then there'd be no other option than to pretend she had walked in her sleep and go back to her dorm. Since the challenge in the lake, he had teased her so mercilessly about being a shark's most sorely missed object that there was no way she was going to give him any further ammunition.

It was Harry, with his hair on end. He looked at her bleary-eyed, still pushing his glasses in place. "Huh-hermione, whassamatter?" he asked, his voice high-pitched with anxiety.

"Shhhh," she hissed. "Nothing, nothing is wrong. I was ... I was wondering whether I could borrow your invisibility cloak for a little. And ... and the Marauder's map. I promise I'll get them back to you safely."

He scratched his head, looking at her with puzzled, narrowing eyes.

She told him _please_ with her own.

With a sigh, he turned his back on her, returning with the shimmering cloak over his arm and the map clutched in his hand.

"This have something to do with Krum, by any chance?" he asked her, studying her face, still hanging on to his treasured possessions.

She bit her lip, knowing her guilty blush must be a dead giveaway. "Harry," she pleaded, "don't make me explain."

"All right." His jaw was set in that way Harry's jaw did when he felt put upon. "But how are you going to get out? Krum's not in the castle this time of night, is he?"

"There's a hidden stairway with a door," she whispered, "from the stairwell outside the kitchens. Dobby uses it. He showed me one night I was down there telling them about SPEW. I can unlock it with the charm he used."

He reluctantly handed her the map. "Be careful." Then the cloak, even more slowly.

"I won't let anything happen to them," she said, relieved yet scared now that she had the means to carry out her plan. "Thanks, Harry."

"Well, I take that as given. That you won't lose my cloak and map doing ... er, _whatever_ it is you do with Krum. But I meant, be careful with you," Harry said quite sharply. "You have your wand, right? You may need a _Lumos_ to read the map."

She raised her wand from her side. "Yeah ... thanks," she said again, inadequately, and turned to leave.

"Good luck," said Harry quickly, and she looked up over her shoulder. His jaw was still pretty tightly clenched, but he did look like he meant it.

She gave him a nervous smile, and then slipped the cloak over herself and disappeared. Harry gave a weary wave in her direction and backed inside.

"Now who's there?" murmured the Fat Lady, startled and sleepy, as she climbed out. "Potter?"

"Shh," she whispered. "'s okay. I'll be back soon."

"Doesn't smell like Potter. Honeysuckle ... rather girly. Oh well, then. You'll have to get back inside too, you know," sighed the portrait, almost half-asleep again.

***

The grounds were quicksilver-bright from a barely waning moon, and Hermione was part of the light as she ran, wrapped in Harry's cloak, down towards the lake and the Durmstrang ship. Now that the night air was cooling the sullen heat in her body, the possible ways this might backfire were starting to draw more of her attention, and she was having some very alarmed second thoughts. She had almost resolved to return without attempting anything risky ... and then the ship was there, washed in moonlight, and she stopped.

She knew the ship must be protected by powerful spells, and that it wasn't worth the risk of being caught -- oh, the unimaginable humiliation of having to explain herself! -- to try to get past them. But she also knew which of the small windows was Viktor's. He had pointed it out to her when they took a walk around the lake some days earlier. And the light was still on -- she walked a little closer, and all of a sudden, he came into view. She could see him moving about, toothbrush in his mouth, his ... oh God, his torso bare. Long and pale and strong. He had ... hair on his chest, a dark shade down the middle. Hermione's mouth went cottony dry.

She was quite decided to turn around, to be sensible and go and return Harry's things, then find her bed and sleep until morning. Quite decided. Yet somewhere outside herself, a braver (or maybe just less sensible) Hermione bent and picked up a small pebble from the ground, took aim and lobbed it gently against Viktor's window. As soon as she heard the soft jangle of impact, she wished she could take it back, her hands flying to cover her mouth as though that had been where the sound came from.

In the next moment the light snapped off, and she could glimpse movement -- he must be at the glass, peering out into the night. There was a second or two before she remembered the invisibility cloak and shrugged it down to her shoulders, stepping closer to the ship, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. Viktor went absolutely still. And then she sensed him gone. She threw on the cloak again, and waited.

It didn't take long at all before he walked barefoot and quiet as a cat down the ship's gangway. Only a pair of pyjama bottoms on him, and God, he was annoyed. She could tell how much from his intense scowl which she had never before seen aimed at _her_. He walked right towards her with some strange instinctive aim, and she played with the thought of turning and running for her life, up to her safe bed. But she knew that if she didn't face the music now, he'd confront her with this later, with much less chance of getting him to help her out.

So when he was so close she could have reached out to touch him, she let the cloak slide off her shoulders again. Viktor didn't even stop in his stride. He closed his hands hard on her shoulders, looking at her in disbelief.

"Hermione." It must be the shock that let him say it correctly, she thought with nervous, wild amusement. "Vot are you ... vy are you here? It's dangerous!"

"For you or for me?" she said archly, and his expression darkened even further.

"For us both, you crazy girl ... vot is this?" He fingered the strange half-visible material of the cloak in abrupt, wondering distraction.

"Cover," she whispered, and threw it over them both.

Inside the shadow of the cloak, she felt the heat of his breath and his body with a near unbearable awareness. Her raised hand holding the cloak brushed his naked skin and he made a soft, hoarse sound and took a step back. She clutched at his hand to stop him.

"Take me onto the ship. Into your room," she pleaded.

He went so quiet, he couldn't even be breathing. "Is ... not a good idea," he finally exhaled. 

"Viktor, I can't sleep. I can't --" she swallowed. "I can't. You see, I ..." Her voice shook. "I thought maybe you could help me."

She hadn't consciously meant to manipulate him, and the wobbly voice felt only humiliating, but the fact was that Viktor was a pretty soft touch for any low mood of hers. His anger fled for concern. "Vot is wrong?" he asked. "I vill help you, if I can."

"I can't talk about it here."

He studied her in the hint of moonlight filtered through the cloak, his gaze a dark glitter. "Karkaroff took his broomstick to Hogsmeade, vos going to apparate somevere," he said suddenly. "Don't know ven he vill be back."

"Then--"

"You can come aboard. But you mustn't stay too long." He stepped out of the cloak, letting it drape more protectively around her. "Stay close at my back," he warned.

She followed him up the gangway and onto the deck. Masts rose over them like bare trunks in a winter forest, the sails all rolled up for the ship's long stay at anchor. Viktor pushed a heavy door open to a cramped, steep flight of stairs, and at the bottom of the stairs, another door into a narrow corridor of cabins. Hermione's nostrils were flared at the ship's rich scents -- ancient wood and spice of tar, ingrained rain and sunshine, and the heady tang of saltwater journeys. As still as the night was, she noticed little of waves, only an indolent, almost teasing sway once in a while as though underwater creatures had sent a playful ripple through the lake.

Viktor stopped at the second door in the corridor and opened it to a cabin that had been magically enlarged to at least three times the size it appeared from the outside. Although Hermione had thought of the possibility on a couple of occasions when she had walked past the ship, it still made her exclaim in surprise. There even was a door ajar to a private, if tiny, bathroom, and a fireplace in the corner with charred and smoldering logs in it.

"Yes," murmured Viktor, having thrown a locking and silencing spell. "A little better than you expected, maybe. The fireplace is not real, but varms vell."

Apart from the fireplace, the room was plain, but nice enough, thought Hermione. There was a low bookshelf on one wall, stocked with heavy old volumes -- Durmstrang magical books? she itched to get her hands on them -- and some newer paperbacks that looked like novels. On a slim desk next to the bookshelf was a framed photograph of Viktor between a middle-aged wizard and witch whom Hermione assumed must be his parents. In the corner next to the fireplace was a large and very comfortable-looking armchair.

On the wall opposite the desk and bookshelf, Viktor's bed had been placed. Just looking at it made Hermione blush, thinking of what she had been up to in her own bed earlier. Had Viktor done the same, tonight? She had a vision of long sinewy limbs writhing and tensing with purpose and felt faint as she looked away, avoiding his eyes. She had no idea what she was going to tell him. Or rather, _how_ she was going to tell him.

Shyly she walked to the bookshelf, ran a finger across the spine of one of the old books. "What are those?" She knelt on the floor and leaned in closer, tilting her head to the side, tried to read the worn gold leaf letters on the back. Strange letters, nonsensical, or was that just the turmoil in her head? -- no, it was the Cyrillic alphabet, of course ... she tried to dig it up from memory, transliterate the foreign words --

Viktor's hand stayed her arm by the time she had the book halfway out. His touch was gentle, but firm. "If I let you look at those books, I vill haff to kill you after."

She stared up at him in horror, and he shook his head, arching an eyebrow with an uncertain smile.

"Joke ... bad joke?" he tried. "If Karkaroff learns I let you look at those books, he _vill_ kill me. That any better?"

She shook herself and took the hand he offered, let him pull her up to her feet.

"No," she said. "Not better at all. I'm sorry."

He sat down on the edge of the bed, gesturing to the armchair. "Take the chair, Her-my-nee. You did not come to see my books."

"Hermione," she corrected him breathlessly, although she usually didn't bother to any more -- sitting down on the very edge of the big armchair. She didn't know what to do with her gaze, her hands, or the deep hot blush that was burning on her face under his worried scrutiny. The dilemma with the hands was solved quickly enough as Viktor leaned forward and took them in his own.

"Are you going to tell me vot is the problem?"

"I guess." She took a shaky breath. It occurred to her that her fingers must still carry the scent of her sex, and she tried to pull them back, but he tightened his hold.

"Look at me, may help," he suggested gently, as the silence stretched on.

Hermione steeled herself and very slowly raised her gaze to meet his dark, concerned one. On the way up there, she had an eyeful of his slender, muscled stomach and chest, and the dark dusting of hair appearing at the waistline of his pants and running up the centre of his torso, and it didn't help to make her any calmer. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a silly little gasp came out.

Viktor was beginning to look seriously alarmed. "Her-my-nee, tell me," he urged her. "Someone hurt you? Something bad happened?"

"No ... no," she stammered. "Nothing ... nothing happened. That's ... sort of the problem," she rushed to say before she could change her mind.

"I don't understand."

She told herself to just put her problem forth like she would do if there really _were_ such a subject at school and she were asking a well-founded question that proved she had been paying attention. "Viktor, when you ... when we kiss --"

He knotted his brow. "You ... vant me to stop kissing you?" he asked, his expression abject.

"God, no! Well, I ... no! Just let me say this, okay?"

"I need change my ... vot do you say ... toothpaste?" he said, a mixture of relief and humour lightening the gaze that had just been full of worry.

She couldn't help laughing. "Viktor! Please shut up."

"Am shutting up now," he said, putting a finger across his lips, looking mischievous.

"You're doing it on purpose, aren't you?" she asked with a sigh.

"Vot on purpose?"

"Being impossible and wonderful."

"I am vonderful?" he said with a small grin of surprised pleasure. He didn't question the 'impossible' part, she noted.

"Yes, rather. Viktor --"

"All right," he said. "Ven ve kiss --"

She swallowed hard. "Yes. I ... have a problem. But it's nothing to do with you. It's me. It feels ... so good. So good that I ... get problems later."

The surprise that registered on his face made it clear that this wasn't anything he had expected. After a second, he squeezed her hands gently. "You vill haff to explain that ... more."

"When we kiss," she whispered, "... do you ... get this strange tingly sensation in your stomach?"

"Oh, yes," he said with feeling, his mouth quirking up. It made her stomach tingle all over again.

"And ... other places? Like something is building and building and if something doesn't happen soon you'll ... die, or explode ... or something?"

Viktor was finally silent, his lips parted on an unuttered exclamation. A blush crept over his cheekbones, but he nodded warily. Hermione took another deep breath, diving headlong into really unchartered waters.

"And then when you get a chance, when you're alone in your bed at night maybe ... you ..." She couldn't bring herself to pick the words to say this after all. She hung her head. "You know what I mean."

Looking dazed, he nodded. He cleared his voice, and said, "I know. And I think you haff guessed ... the answer to that."

"Well," she whispered. "The thing is ... I do that thing too."

Viktor's dark eyes seemed slightly glazed. "Merlin ... Her-my-nee, you trying to drive me from my mind?"

"You didn't think I did ... the thing?" she asked, wanting to sink through the floor.

"No," he muttered. "No, that is not it. But hear you talk about it is ..." It was his turn to breathe from the depth of his lungs, letting it out in a long shaky exhale. She could see him tumble the thought around, grappling to understand her problem. "You think this is wrong, vot you do?"

"Of course not," she said quickly. "I know it's perfectly healthy and natural. It says so in my book. Everyone does it. It's just ... I'm no bloody good at it." The last came out choked with sudden tears of tension and embarrassment, as she anticipated laughter, big howls of it, because this must surely be the funniest, most pathetic thing ever uttered by a girl to Viktor Krum.

To Viktor's credit, he stayed absolutely serious -- well, stunned might perhaps be a more precise descriptor. He raised his hand to swipe his thumb under her eyes, brushing away the wet salt there. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I am very sorry. I had no idea."

"I don't see how you'd be expected to," she said, trying to be stoic about it.

He shook his head, pressing his lips together. "I haff been selfish, did not think. So you ... your problem is you can't --?"

"I can't make myself ... come," she forced out. "That's what they call it, right? I mean," she hurried, so as not to sound entirely stupid and childish, "I know it's what they call it, it just feels weird to ... say it out loud."

"So you vant me to ... stop. To stop kissing you and make you feel that vay. You vant to stop seeing me."

Viktor's mien was pained, yet brave, rather in the manner of announcing his impending, honourable suicide by spear stabs to the heart. Hermione sat with her hands held in his, her mouth hanging open, unable to take in how she'd been able to say this much and _still_ have the most mortifying part left to spell out letter by letter. "No!" she finally said, shaking her head violently. "I want you to -- to show me how to--"

Viktor gasped as it sank in what she was trying to communicate. He let go of her hands and stood up on his feet, towering over her. "Her-my-nee." His voice seemed to have dropped an octave, to a low growl that made her name sound like a soft wolfish sound. "You don't know vot you're--"

"Please," she whispered. "I do know." She was staring down at his feet, long and slender like the rest of him, with adorable little tufts of black hair on his biggest toes. "I know that you ... you worry about the age difference, and all. That you don't want me to think back when you're gone back home and despise you for taking advantage. And I ... actually I think you're pretty amazing for being so decent about it. But I just want you to show me, this once, so I can, you know, get over the hurdle. And then we can keep on with the kissing thing, and when I'm older, if we have the chance then, we can ..." she chewed nervously on her bottom lip, frowning -- "well, make love, I guess--"

Viktor sat down on his haunches before her, as smoothly and quickly as if it were one of his famous Quidditch feints, and cupped her cheek so that she was forced to look at him. His lips were pressed together, his gaze narrowed and fierce. "You think ve can go from doing this and back to just kissing. You think it is so simple."

"I don't know," she admitted slowly. "I just know that I ... I'm going crazy, because I'm aware of this ... need now, and it won't go away. If you help me this one time, does it have to be anything more or worse than just that?"

Viktor turned his gaze to the ceiling for a moment as if beseeching higher powers for patience. "Problem vith being very smart is that everything seems so logical, so easy to you. Like ... seeing things through binoculars: you see everything clearly, yet miss huge bear charging at you from the side. Logical is not same as ... practical, don't you know that, Her-my-nee?"

Stung by his words, she opened her mouth to defend herself, and he shook his head, his fingers on her cheek sliding into her hair and smoothing it.

"I only vant you to remember me as friend," he said hoarsely. "Not as bandit who abused your trust. Not as someone you vill not vant to ever see or speak to again."

"But it's because you're my friend I'm asking you," she said, raising her own hand to brush unsteady fingers over his cheek. Viktor drew in a sharp breath at the touch, his eyelids drooping in pleasure, and his reaction gave her the nerve to press on despite his resistance to the idea. "I know you are kind and conscientious. And ... you have some experience, right? You may think I don't notice but I can tell, you're holding a lot back for my sake."

Viktor dropped his gaze at that, and when he looked up he was actually half-smiling. He reached up and caught her hand, holding it between both of his own on his knees, which jutted out sharp and bony under the soft flannel of his pyjama pants. "Maybe my experience is not vast as you and others imagine, hm?"

"It's bound to be greater than mine, at least," she said softly. "Please, Viktor. Not as my boyfriend, or my lover or anything -- just as a ... a very good friend, to help with this very specific thing." She hoped she didn't sound as desperate as she was starting to feel, her stomach turning over with fear that he would really refuse to help her and send her back, and this conversation would have ruined everything; nothing would ever feel light-hearted or simple between them again. "I ... I guess I've begged you now, I didn't really want to do that."

His eyes widened in a flood of -- compassion, passion? It bewildered her, that look of stricken understanding. He pushed himself up from his crouching position and sat hunched forward on the edge of the bed, clearly thinking hard about what to do. He hadn't let go of her hand. And it was something in his expression, his posture: with a brutal jolt of consciousness, Hermione sensed in her gut how much more of a grown-up Viktor was, even with only three years' advantage on her, and it made her feel utterly small and stupid to have put them both in this situation.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tugging to free her hand. "I truly am. There just ... wasn't anyone else to ask, you see. No one else I'd want to know."

Viktor shook his head, letting out his breath slowly as he looked up into her hurt gaze, and then he swung his long legs up on the bed and lay down close to the wall, facing her, and stretched out an arm along the pillow in such a gentle, natural invitation. "Come," he murmured. "Forgive me for make you feel bad."

Hermione stared at him in shock, eyes wide. She had entirely given up hope that he'd agree to help.

"As a friend," he said in a voice that made it sound more warning than promise. But then his face lit up with a smile that was surprisingly mild on his sharp bird-of-prey face. "At least you didn't ask Potter."

She laughed, taken aback by that. Surely he didn't believe any of that nonsense Rita Skeeter had cooked up? It was a mystery to her that Viktor saw Harry as competition where she was concerned, but at the same time it was endearing and sort of reassuring to know that Viktor could be just as silly as her. She looked down at herself, a little dismayed as she realised how very unseductive her outfit was. "Should I take off --"

"The shoes definitely," he said, quiet laughter in his eyes. "And the sveater, I think."

She kicked off the shoes while she took hold of the edge of the jumper, pulling it up and over her head, and stood there in her decidedly unsexy flannel pyjamas. She looked at him in his pyjama bottoms, and pressed her lips together in thought. Slowly, she unbuttoned the top, and let it slide off. "Now we're even."

Her breasts tingled under his wide, heated gaze, prickling and tightening with sensation that gathered at the tips and shot down between her legs. She felt her eyes going half-lidded, her breath catching. Saying good-bye to any way back, she put her hands down on the mattress and crawled up to lie on his arm.

Viktor leaned up on his elbow, his long upper torso looming over her. The diagonal slant of his broad shoulders seemed to define a horizon, shutting her into this world of skin heat and closeness. His face was in half shadow from the wall lamp overhead, and although Hermione wasn't afraid of anything she might find in Viktor's face, she still wished that the sharp shades cast by his angular features hadn't made his expression so unreadable.

Very lightly, he placed his hand on her stomach.

"Oh!" She sounded, thought Hermione abashed, as if he'd knocked the wind out of her. But his hand felt so hot, and so large -- big, square Seeker's hand, spanning most of her midriff. Her stomach muscles tensed as he slid the hand down her stomach, playing with the elastic of her pants.

"Her-my-nee," he said, "how far you get before you ... give up?"

"I'm not sure," she confessed, breathing fast so her muscles moved his hand. "I ... get so far, I get ... desperate, almost scared. It's like--" she swallowed. "Like being in a dark room, pitch dark, and fumbling over the walls knowing there's a light switch on one of them, but being completely unable to find and flip the switch." God, she thought, her eyes closing in misery, that really sounded loony.

"I understand," said Viktor.

"You do?" she squeaked as he slipped his hand under the elastic, under -- God! -- under the waist elastic of her knickers -- he was really going straight for the kill.

They sighed in unison as he stroked down through the soft curls on her mound and found the warm wetness pooled at her cleft. Hermione clutched hard at his arms. The unpredictable touch of someone else's fingers on her swollen flesh was almost too much to bear, and so was the knowledge that now Viktor knew, knew precisely how he affected her.

"Shh. Vill be okay, Her-my-nee. I promise. You say if you need ... pause, to catch your breath."

"Okay," she whispered.

He pressed a little harder with a finger, gliding into all the slick heat and finding her clitoris, making her jerk and give a breathless exclamation.

"Aha." Viktor's look was rather on the rakish side. "Found it." 

Hermione felt defensive at his satisfied tone. "My problem isn't _finding_ it," she argued a little stridently, her voice husky because he was spreading the moisture around with a light touch and it felt so nice, so good. "I just can't manage to make it do what it says in the book. It says that with patient and sus--sustained stimulation, it will eventually -- oh ..." 

He'd begun a gentle circling caress. Hermione arched her neck back against his arm, a strange low moan tearing from her throat as distilled sensation collected and radiated under his touch. So much more intense than when it was her own hand.

"You like that." It wasn't a question. There was a slight smile in his voice, she thought, but it wasn't arrogant; it was reverent, tinged with a joyful awe. "You think it's like vork, something you must do right to get best result," he murmured. "Like study, serious. But that's not it. Is like play. Like ... going to Hogsmeade, drinking butterbeer, having fun. Like seeing the Snitch in a game and going after, no one else matter, just race between it and you--"

"Isn't that work, for you?" she interjected breathlessly, but he shook his head laughing. 

"No, is play, is vonderful-- like this..." 

After that, it all became a blur. He kept up the soft massage of her clitoris, letting up only when she whimpered and pleaded for a reprieve -- then he'd just rest his fingers there, letting the slightest pressure and movement keep the tension intact while he spoke to her, low words that she only understood by his tender, encouraging tone. It was like climbing a mountain, thought Hermione dazed at one point; making sure to not get so tired you'd backslide, by taking small rests on sheltered places underway to the summit.

When she got sweaty and flushed, heat rising from her under the warm cotton where his hand was working, he used his free hand to ease the waistband of her pyjamas downwards, and as she raised her hips he pushed both pants and knickers down on her thighs -- shushing her when she hid her face against his neck in belated modesty, telling her quietly that she was beautiful. 

Little by little, experimenting sometimes to find a better angle or weight of touch, he helped her to that wild stormy place that had always defeated her, and by then she was tossing in his arms, her face burning as though she were in the throes of a fever, feeling the hammer of pulse and blood threatening to make her faint or scream.

"This is vere you get scared?" Viktor asked, and Hermione realised with something close to gratitude that he could see the fear on her, how hopelessly lost she felt. She nodded, unable to spare breath even to speak.

"Don't be. You're safe," he told her, "it's safe," and his fingers didn't stop like hers always did, they kept gliding and gliding while she clung to him starting to shake like an aspen leaf, and then her legs locked, without her deciding they should, and she felt a heavy throb start right under his fingers, right in her clitoris, beating in time with her helpless caught breath, and then --

It wasn't like a heart attack after all, it burst under his touch in a golden warmth that released through her entire body in a slow, expanding shockwave of pleasure -- God, _everywhere_. Her back and neck arching, toes curling, hips writhing and pushing off the bed. She moaned and clung to his shoulders while the heat washed over and through her, and then she fell back, still trembling, and safe in Viktor's arms.

Safe, like he'd told her, like he'd promised. Shocked with relief and with the force of the sensation she had just experienced, she pressed her face into his chest. She didn't think she could look him in the eyes quite at once -- it wasn't exactly shyness, either, just an overwhelming sense of being so naked she might lose it and start crying if she couldn't hide a while.

Viktor moved his fingers away a fraction, but let them rest between her thighs. The arm cradling her moved so that he could smooth her hair with his hand. He said her name once -- questioning, a little worried maybe -- but when she didn't reply, he didn't push her.

After a minute or two, she drew back, making a small distance between them. Viktor took his fingers away from between her legs only then, and she could smell herself on them as they gently pushed her hair to the side so he could see her face.

"Are you okay?" he asked, and for all the times he had spoken to her tenderly and with care, she didn't think she'd ever heard quite such kindness in his voice before.

She managed a smile that probably shook a little. She was dry-mouthed from all the panting that had been going on. "I ... I guess I understand better what all the fuss is about now."

His eyes crinkled with humour, as well as relief, she thought. "Vell, that is good. Life is more than books, little Her-my-nee."

She had to laugh. "I knew that!"

"Is Quidditch, sex _and_ books," he elaborated, a twinkle in his eyes.

Hermione quirked an eyebrow at him, surprised but shyly delighted at his teasing. "In that order, huh?"

"Hm ..." He raised an eyebrow of his own. "Quidditch is fun, but never made me moan like that."

"Oh, _you_ ," she giggled, and dipped her head quickly to hide behind her hair. She hadn't been that noisy ... had she?

"No, no, moans are good," he hurried to reassure her, tilting her chin up again with his fingers, then tucking her hair behind her ear. "Is very good sign, moaning ven having sex." His eyes made fun of her, but in such a nice way that Hermione couldn't bring herself to care.

"Viktor, thanks," she whispered with diffident but earnest appreciation. "You've been so ... you are really ..." She swallowed, and knew she must be blushing to the roots of her hair.

"Impossible?" he said mildly.

"No, really wonderful," she whispered back, and maybe it was something on her face, but his expression went quite serious then.

"Her-my-nee." His turn to collect himself, to search for words. "If I do this some day as your lover, not as friend," he said hoarsely, "vill do so much more. Vill be my mouth there, drinking of you -- vill be us both, moving together ..." 

He didn't wait for an answer, but took her hand and placed it firmly over her mound. "Now you," he instructed, his voice not entirely steady. "Vill be easier to come second time. Lucky girls," he added, breaking the tension with a small lopsided grin. 

He really took the teacher role seriously, Hermione realised. He had made no attempt to touch her breasts, to kiss her, any detour from the stated aim. They'd agreed that this would be him helping her out, a favour between friends, and the only way he could justify to himself what he was doing was by not crossing that boundary of involvement. But she glanced down to the crotch of his pants and saw it tented in a way that left no doubt about his interest. She bit her lip, choking back a gasp as her fingers slid over her sensitised flesh. She discovered at once that she was floating in some state of possibility, not back yet to where she would have to start the climb from scratch.

"You can make sound," he reassured her. "Silencing spell is strong."

She nodded, although it was self-consciousness rather than doubt about his spell-casting skills that held her back. Squeezing her eyes shut to concentrate, she slid the pad of her finger over the hard pearl of her clitoris. Her other hand drifted up towards her breast with a will of its own; she caught herself and hesitated, acutely aware of his eyes on her.

"You like to touch your breasts?" She could hear his smile in his voice. "Merlin ... who vouldn't?" he chuckled, making her laugh softly in surprised joy, making her bold enough to do what she'd wanted, take a hardened nipple between two fingers and roll it slowly. The next moan that came, she couldn't hold back -- the sensation of stimulation in two places at once was intense and overwhelming.

"Hmm. You like to think about something too? Can help, have fantasy in mind."

Oh God. She could barely think at all, with Viktor saying things like that in that ragged, soft voice. "Just you," she got out, "I think of you," and then all of a sudden she remembered the thought she'd had about Snape and the orgasm class and felt herself flush scarlet, eyes flying open.

Viktor touched her flaming cheek, his smile intrigued now. "Maybe I vill ask you some day."

She strove to keep her eyes open, attempted helplessly to focus on his face, because she'd truly prefer to climax thinking of Viktor rather than Snape. She formed his name with her lips, barely able to actually voice the word, too lost in what she was feeling. 

"Her-my-nee." Viktor's show of tutorial distance was unravelling, she thought. His voice was a deep groan and it didn't seem like he had much control over the way he was rubbing his hard length against her thigh, his hand cupping her own over her mound, his breath on her temple turning into an open-mouthed kiss. But she was only half aware of these things. Her fingers were flying as she strained for a second release that she found amazingly within reach, approaching so fast and so close she could taste it on her gasping breath. She would have stopped there, before, but she had learnt the nature of this impact now, enough to open to it instead of slamming on the brakes.

"Viktor," she whimpered, "Viktor, hold me, it's really coming, it's really --"

He tightened his arm around her in answer, and she heard him talking to her as the orgasm took her, but it was only after she had stopped shaking and crying that she realised he'd had to resort to his own language again.

"Mmm," she whispered after a while of lying and listening to his rapid heartbeat, inhaling the clean sweat sheened on his skin. "It's not fair to you."

He stroked her hair, not answering, and she had an unexpected pang of understanding: _no, it's not fair to him, and he knew that from the start_. She ran her palm down the rise and fall of his chest, overcome by tenderness.

"I don't know if I can ever move again," she whispered.

He laughed at that, raising himself up on an elbow and lightly shaking off her hand. "You vill haff to, I'm afraid. I should valk you up to the castle now."

She reached down to her thighs and took hold of her bunched knickers and pyjama bottoms, wriggling them up and in place before she sat up, looking down at him. Glanced down at his lap again. He followed her gaze and made no effort to hide the erection tenting his loose pants, but he shook his head, making a small rueful grimace. "Not vorry. Vill take care of it later."

"Can't you do it now?" she blurted out. "I ... I would like to ... to see you, too."

He sat up slowly, looking at her quietly. His eyes were burning with some barely checked emotion that she couldn't identify but that filled her with a rather delicious frisson of danger. "You asked me for favour, as friend," he rasped. "I obliged. If ve do more ... vill be more than friendly, I'm thinking. Vill be me taking --"

"Advantage," she finished for him, a little irritated at last. "It won't! It's me asking you ... and I won't do a thing if you really don't want me to; I'll just watch. Viktor --" She tilted her head as a thought occurred to her. "Now you have seen me do it. So you do have the advantage. If you let me see you too, we're even again."

"Her-my-nee," he growled in frustration. "You talk too vell for an inexperienced girl."

"Then let me add to my experience a little," she retorted hotly.

He raked his hand through his hair, temptation and doubt warring in his expression. But it was hardly a fair fight at this point. With a muttered Bulgarian word that must have been an oath, he reached behind her, fluffing the pillow.

"You," he said, "sit there. Don't move. You promise? I don't haff to bind you vith spell, do I?"

She shook her head quickly, and scooted back to lean against the pillow before he could change his mind again. "I swear."

He moved down to the middle of the bed, facing her and kneeling, up on his knees. Hermione watched him, avidly wide-eyed, preparing to take mental notes. He closed his eyes as he pushed the pyjama bottoms down on his hips, and she blinked in surprise.

His penis was not at all like her vague expectations, pink and even and ...polite, like illustrations in books. It was almost angry-red in colour with veins standing out and a thicker, knobby end; it rose from a vigorous bush of dark hair; it ... bobbed when he moved. It had a musky, salty scent that spread with his body heat. It had heavy bits hanging down under it -- his sac with the testicles, Hermione catalogued neatly. 

It wasn't exactly larger than she'd imagined (there was nothing wrong with Hermione's imagination) but it _seemed_ larger because it was so real, because Viktor spat in his hand before touching it, because his face contorted so when his palm closed over it, then loosened in bliss as he began to slide his fingers up and down.

His neck arched back a little and his face and chest flushed and his torso was so slender and strong, rearing up almost like a cobra but still nothing as scary as that.

"Viktor," she whispered, dry-throated. She didn't know if she was allowed to speak, but she couldn't just sit and watch this without trying to tell him how it moved her.

He forced his eyes half-open, a distant, pleading look in them.

"You are _so_ beautiful." Hushed and hurried confession, embarrassing when the last word caught in her throat. It was worth it for the little smile lifting the corners of his mouth. He murmured something unintelligible, held her gaze as he kept thrusting into his moving hand. Hermione tried to imagine him pushing inside her in that rhythm and had to curl her legs under her, holding on to the ghost sensation she'd felt.

"Is that very good?"

"Yes, very good," he croaked, his hand flying faster, his head drooping forward, chin pressing to his chest. "Von't last long. Not long now. Ah, Her-my-nee--"

The head of his penis was pearling with droplets, she noticed. He was smoothing them over his skin, sliding them back to ease the friction. Without a thought for her promise of inaction she raised her hand, leaning forward to capture one of those little pearls of moisture, intensely curious.

His left hand shot across his torso and he caught her wrist with a growl of warning. His right didn't stop moving at that desperate speed. 

"Please," said Hermione, voice wavering, "I just want a taste, just--"

His eyes focused on her with difficulty, widening with almost astonished lust, and then he gave a low cry, shifted his left hand to clasp around hers in a death grip and his right hand sort of stilled for a moment before moving slower and more deliberately, as he started to shudder and shake and his semen spilled and spurted up on his stomach and chest and through the air.

He sagged forward, heaving for breath, and she threw her arms around him, her heart hammering in empathy with his, which she could feel thudding close to where her cheek pressed against his damp skin. Her breasts were flattened against his hard ribcage and it felt nice if strange, a sensation hovering between itch and pleasure.

He finally pushed himself up on his arms, looking down into her face under the sweat-damp hair shading his eyes. His mouth was quirked up, sardonic yet uncertain, still releasing shaky huffs of breath.

"You feel you got even vith me now, Her-my-nee?"

She smiled back. "Yeah ... I'd say. Wow."

"I like that vord. Vow," said Viktor, and Hermione broke out in a hearty giggle at his amazingly satisfied smile and his egregious mispronunciation and how utterly unreal it was that this man and his heartfelt "vow" was for her.

"I know I said it wrong," said Viktor and shook his head, but his chagrin was only for show, quite put into the shade by his huge smile.

They grinned at each other for a few seconds, and then he sat back up, reaching for the bedcovers to wipe off himself and her. Some of his semen had landed on their clasped hands, and Hermione hurried to dip her tongue on her knuckle before he could wipe her clean. He cocked an eyebrow, looking at her as she frowned. It wasn't exactly pleasant - too much of all kinds of tastes at once -- but it wasn't _too_ gross, either. Not as bad as some of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, for example. She wouldn't have recommended it for a new flavour variety, though. 

Viktor took in her doubtful grimace, laughing without rancour. "A taste you haff to get used to, perhaps."

"Maybe." She reached for her pyjama top, reluctant. "Oh, I don't want to leave, Viktor. But I had better."

"Her-my-nee." His fingers were sudden and light on her jaw, tilting up her chin, as he leaned in and gave her a brief, gentle kiss. "Are you-- did I --" He stopped himself and frowned. "Vanted to help, but is hard, vith sex, making clear difference between vot you give and vot you take."

She bit her lip, touched yet disconcerted by his doubt. "I don't feel that you've taken from me at all," she said, hesitating as she, too, searched for the right words. "I know a little bit more than when I came here and it's -- it's all just things I'm glad to know. If you enjoyed it too, that only means you're human, not that you're a ... bandit." She smiled, recalling his earlier phrase.

He studied her for a second more, then returned her smile and shook his head. "I may be stupid," he said quietly. "Am only eighteen too, you know. And maybe bit too much in love."

She raised her head with a stab of surprise, but he was already getting up. He took her jumper from the floor and handed it to her, then shed his pyjama bottoms and pulled on a pair of jeans. He didn't bother to put on shoes, waiting for her to lace up her own.

"Just walk me out through the ship's protective spells," she said. "I'll go up to the school on my own." He opened his mouth, ready to protest, and she put her fingers over his lips. "None of that lovely chivalry right now. I'll be safe with the invisibility cloak, but you might be seen when you go back, and then we'd both be in trouble."

On the lake shore outside, it took some further persuasion and kisses under the cloak before he agreed. He was no more eager to let her go than she was to leave, but at last she took a step back.

"I really have to. God knows when Karkaroff will be here," she whispered.

"I know."

"Will everything be different now?" she asked, feeling a strange pull between exhilaration and compunction. Not for herself, really, but for that somber mood she'd sensed in him earlier. "Between us, I mean?"

"I vill try not treat you any different," he said, gently circumventing her question. He gave a rueful grin. "Of course from now, I vill be at least as frustrated as you. You are little devil."

"I really got even, then," she said with a shy laugh. "Viktor ... if we do this later the way you said ... as lovers, not as friends --"

"Mm?"

"I think I'd like it a lot."

"I am glad," he said, his gaze all glittering. A last, gentle kiss, his fingers tracing over her hair, his lips brushing softly across hers. "Run and sleep now, little Her-my-nee."

It felt like flying up the fields towards the castle, even though her leg muscles were sore and aching like nothing she'd felt before. She felt elated and a little panicky at the same time. As she whispered the spell to open the door, she turned and saw a dark shape up in the night sky, like a bat across the moon -- someone coming in on a broomstick, their robes lifted wide with the rush of the air. Karkaroff, she thought, her heart skipping a beat with fear, but Viktor had had plenty of time by now to return to his room, and she was already inside, the door closed and locking shut.

She kept the map ready on her way up inside the castle, but the trip was uneventful. No sign of Peeves, thank God. She reached the seventh floor of Gryffindor tower, finding the Fat Lady softly snoring, and whispered the password.

The Fat Lady opened her eye a wink. "Thought you'd never be back."

She sighed, and repeated the password.

"I would rather not let anyone in unseen at this time of night," said the Fat Lady primly.

Hermione gave up, and peeked out of the cloak. Her hair was even more unruly than usual, she realised -- she could feel it standing up on all sides -- and there was even less she could do about the warmth in her cheeks or the sheen in her eyes. She waited for a snide remark, but the Fat Lady just smiled, dreamy-eyed and gentle.

"I hope he is a nice young man, dear." Smoothly and soundlessly, she swung to the side.

Hermione didn't reply, but on a whim she leaned in and kissed the portrait on the cheek before she climbed in, hearing a low chuckle as the opening closed behind her.

Inside, she whispered a quick "Mischief managed" and shut the map. She kept the cloak on until she was in her bed, folding it neatly and tucking it under her pillow with the map, next to the copy of _Woman, Know Your Body_.

She was sound asleep within a minute.

 

-end-


End file.
